Finding Dire Dawa was pure serendipity. We were checking out Ethiopian bakeries in the Hamilton Rd. area (for our Crave feature), hoping it might be one, but as we wandered the cramped and overstocked market (no sign of baking to be found) we noticed a room off to the side. Chairs, tables, counter, samosas in the display case – it’s a restaurant alright, Dire Cafe.

Once fully inside, a set of carved stools huddled around an equally ornate table captured our attention. They’re set aside for use in a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony. So, we thought, lets do that.

First, green coffee beans are presented in a pan for inspection and whisked away to the kitchen. Shortly, they’re presented again – this time pan roasted and smoking – then back to the kitchen. Finally, the prepared coffee emerges in a large black ceramic carafe. We huddle around on the stools while the hostess assumes a central position and pours coffee into small and delicate gilded cups.

The first sip reveals a dark roast with deep cardamom undertones and a thick, almost syrupy body. It’s far from what most of us consume on a daily basis, and largely better off for it. It appears that our hostess is primarily in attendance to refill our cups, and perhaps to make small talk, for as long as we see fit. There can be an element of uncertainty in such open-ended arrangements, but we needn’t have worried – after finishing the first refill we felt as though we’d consumed the contents of a Red Bull factory. Time for food.

We’ve eaten Dire Cafe twice, and on the day of the coffee ceremony it was all about the lentils, lentils, lentils. With a flurry of caffeinated injera swiping, the lentils were gone. The red lentil dish, misir wat, is one of our favorites that we’ve eaten at Dire Cafe. Here it is pictured with a solid rendition of awaze tibs (beef cooked with fresh tomato berbere, peppers, onions and seasoned butter).

We also really like the kuwanta firfir which is served in a basket and consists of torn up pieces of injera tossed with a sauce and small pieces of beef jerky. It’s not a pretty dish but it’s very tasty. Also popular was the yebeg tibs (pictured below) a lamb stew with tomatoes, onions peppers and garlic.

Dire Cafe has a pretty extensive menu including some breakfast dishes and several dishes that are primarily comprised of raw meat. The Market also has it’s own butcher and you can see them passing freshly cut beef and lamb through a window between the butcher and the restaurant.

If you’re a fan of Ethiopian food or want to try the Ethiopian coffee ceremony we recommend Dire Cafe. Service is slow so be forewarned and allow plenty of time, especially for the coffee ceremony.

Solay Bistro had amassed a cult following among adventurous eaters, and its recent disappearance left many perplexed – it shut down for Ramadan and just never opened back up.

It’s open now, under the name of Hoyo’s Kitchen, and the explanation for what transpired is as follows: upon closing for Ramadan, a change of ownership took place. The new owner wanted to do some work on the place, including dining room refurbishments, rebranding, and menu adjustments, which always takes longer than one might expect.

What they wisely did not change, however, is the kitchen staff. The food is of the same quality as before, which is to say very good. A cook who we knew from the first days of Solay’s opening was eager to freely convey her confidence in the new ownership. Pictured below is the vegetarian sampler with canjeero.

In our discussions with the new owner and his family, we felt similarly optimistic. Friendly, capable, and eager to please, they made it abundantly clear that Hoyo’s mission was to create an environment that was welcoming to all, and that maintaining the quality food standards set by Solay were a top priority. And, more to the point, they proved it with how we were served and what we were served.

So, in summation – if you were a fan of Solay, or are simply interested in trying Somali food, we strongly recommend that you try Hoyo. Most of the same dishes are available with some additions. One new appetizer is bajiya which are like a Somali falafel. You’ll also find a coffee shop menu with hot drinks and sweets and there are plans to add breakfast in a few months when the restaurant is more established.

Ramen and fried chicken. The sudden eruption of restaurants specializing in one or the other amounts to a culinary onslaught. And so, it was inevitable – Meshikou debuts as a place that does both.

The karaage is good – crispy, with a thin, delicate crust, and exceptionally tender flesh – and more or less what you might expect from a Japanese take on fried chicken. Seasoning is mercifully restrained, the crust and flesh are as far from greasy as could be, and a basket is perfect for two to share. A sweet and spicy dipping sauce accompanies.

As for the ramen – while strict purists may reasonably object to various elements of it, our slurping table of 5 found little to complain about and much to enjoy. The ‘shoyu tonkotsu ramen’, as the name suggests, is a mashup of two traditional styles, probably tasted as strongly of chicken stock as the pork broth that ‘tonkotsu’ promises, but nonetheless delivered on ramen’s (often lacking) key components of luxurious richness and deep broth flavor. The increasingly de-rigeur Sun Noodle ramen noodles proved that there’s good reason for their ubiquity and they were prepared to a pleasing toothsomeness. The chashu pork was solid, and the marinated soft boiled egg was absolutely perfect in flavor and texture.

In short, it was a good bowl. It was also a relatively small bowl. When it came, I eyed it with skepticism. When I was finished, I realized that the size was ideal. Did we mention it was rich?

We also tried the spicy miso version, and while it was enjoyed, the shoyu tonkotsu won us over.

Perhaps the least exciting element of the meal was the pork buns, which seemed composed of reasonably well prepared ingredients, but was marred by an excessively sweet sauce.

There’s much left to try, including vegetable and pure chicken stock ramen options, as well as broth-less noodle dishes.

Service was pleasant and attentive, and the space was a pleasant distillation of the interiors of the coastal ramen meccas.

Your first decision, should you choose to dine at Wycliff’s, is this – Kenyan menu or Indian? It’ll likely be your second hint that this isn’t your typical restaurant. The exterior signage primarily promotes Indian offerings, with Wycliff’s identity relegated to a small window banner, and to the best of our ability to discern the restaurant contains two businesses offering distinct cuisines but operating out of the same kitchen and dining room.

We chose the Kenyan menu. I suspect that to do so is to talk with Wycliff, and this is a good thing – he’s gregarious, warm, and informative, and though the truth is over a decade dearer, he doesn’t look a day over 19 years old.

As they say, I’ll have what he’s having.

As it turns out, that’s often Karanga Mbuzi, or goat stew. It never fails to amaze me how much of the world has some variation on this dish, and while spicing varies, the basic concept is surprisingly consistent – bone-in goat, cut into silver dollar sized pieces, in a thick, rich, and flavorful base. Of course, stewing meat tenderizes it, explaining the popularity of the concept, and few are tenderer than Wycliff’s rendition. The goat’s flavor is pleasantly mild and the saucing is perfectly balanced. When we return, we’ll try new dishes (more on that later), but I suspect we’ll make a point of getting second helping of this.

We also tried the Karanga Ng’ombe, a similarly prepared, but bone-free, beef stew. The only problem with this perfectly enjoyable dish was the inevitable comparison with the excellence of the goat. If goat’s just not your thing, then this’ll be a sure bet.

Less enjoyable to our group of 4 was the Chapati Madodo. Comprised of peruano beans cooked in coconut milk and served with a flatbread known as chapati, it wanted for at minimum a pinch more salt, at least in comparison to the more memorable version served by the late Taste of Zanzibar.

Each of the above entrees comes with your choice of two sides, and standouts included the pilau (seasoned rice with meat), kabeji (cabbage with onions), spinach, and the conspicuously fresh green beans. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – African cuisines know how to do vegetables. Among the apps, we’d go for the beef samosa. We also sampled some mango mousse cake even though we didn’t really have room. It was light in texture and very mangoey.

Prices are reasonable (entrees with 2 sides cost between $10-$13 for dinner), service is pleasant and attentive, and portions are generous. Wycliff also offers some bargain lunch specials ranging from $6.49-$7.99. Grilled meats and an intriguing mashed potato dish known as mukimo are served on Saturdays. We’ll be back to try them.

We’re a bit remiss in not having covered Asia Market before… they’ve been open since 1981. It’s a large, high ceilinged market featuring an eclectic array of goods that cater not just to Asian tastes but also offers plenty of Latino and African products. Curiously, they also have the largest selection of ‘vegetarian meats’ that we’ve ever seen including vegetarian pork belly. The photo below does not show the whole case.

Even beyond that, culinary curiosities abound. The frozen fish section is huge and varied, black skinned chicken can be found, as can octopi of all sizes. It’s a great browse, and a clean and well-stocked market.

To the right side of the store (relative to the entrance), sits a partioned area that acts as a small restaurant. There are seven tables, a TV and, notably, a high chair. The menu is very small and offers two appetizers (egg rolls and spring rolls), three noodle soups, bun cha gio thit nuong, banh cuon, and Vietnamese coffee.

The bun cha gio thit nuong was solid but not exceptional. It’s comprised of cold vermicelli noodles topped with salad, grilled pork, and egg rolls, and comes with the usual fish sauce based dressing to pour on top.

The bun bo hue was a bit disappointing. The broth was watery and heavy on the fish sauce but insufficiently meaty and spicy. Usually this dish is fragrant with lemongrass but that seemed to be lacking too. The beef was a bit of a lottery, a couple of pieces were tender and flavorful but several were inedibly chewy. There was some tendon and some slices of pork loaf but no pork blood.

The bun rieu – a vermicelli soup dish usually made with a crab and tomato based broth – was the highlight of the meal and the dish that we would go back for. It contained fish cake, shrimp (or crab?) paste, fresh shrimp and pork loaf, and had a pleasing dose of funk from the fish sauce and seafood.

Vietnamese coffee is the only beverage on offer at the restaurant. It’s made to order and comes either black or with sweetened condensed milk and can be consumed hot or over ice. Other (canned or bottled) drinks can be purchased from the store and consumed in the restaurant.

We probably wouldn’t recommend Asia Market as a destination for Vietnamese dining, but if you have some shopping to do and want to grab a bite while you are there then it’s good to know about. Our advice would be to order your food first, then shop and come back to the restaurant – service was a little slow.

With the closing of Blue Nile in the north campus area, Ethiopian food had become an east side affair. And, while we like Ethiopian food, we haven’t craved it enough to schlepp out to Hamilton Rd. with any regularity.

The owner Niman knew that a larger proportion of the Ethiopian and Eritrean population were on the North side, unserved by a restaurant offering their national cuisine, and with the opening of his Cleveland Avenue restaurant, Addis, he has made the cuisine far more geographically accessible for them, and for us.

The dining room is clean and pleasant, in an orderly no-frills kind of way, and service is unwaveringly pleasant and eager to answer questions. The menu is tightly focused, with less than 10 dishes, though 10 more are understood to be on their way in the next couple of weeks.

While we’re eager to see what the menu expansion may bring, we were more than happy with what exists. We tried the mahbarawi platter with tibs, and added the zillzill tibs, a beef short rib dish. The mahbarawi platter also included 4 vegetable dishes and salad. All of the dishes are served together on a larger sharing platter with some hot sauce.

The tibs, a beef stew was, to us, the best rendition we’ve tried so far – spicy, complex, and delicious. The platter can also be ordered with chicken.

The zillzill tibs, on the other hand, was entirely new to us, and amounted to a tasty curiosity. It consisted of chunks of beef short rib meat, and the menu listed it as seasoned with garlic, black pepper, onion, and green chili. True though this may be, the flavor struck us as faintly teriyaki-esque… which was not bad, by any means, but more than a bit surprising.

Accompaniments included lentils, cabbage, and spinach, and all were up to snuff. The injera bread as good as any we’ve had, and was conspicuously fresh. Portions, as always with Ethiopian food are plentiful. Dishes are cooked to order and Niman was keen to point out that dishes like kitfo can be cooked to your taste – anywhere from rare to well done. We were also asked what level of spice we wanted. As is traditional with Ethiopian food be prepared to eat with your hands.

We also enjoyed Ethiopian tea and coffee and Niman told us that on Friday they prepare traditionally prepared Ethiopian coffee and offer samples to customers.

Here’s a quick post on an east side food spot of note; La Bendicion is a fun little Guatemalan owned bakery that opened recently on the Main St.

The bakery sells a range of bread rolls, pan dulce (sweet breads), cookies and pastries. We really enjoyed a flaky pastry with a sweet cheese filling.

However, our favorite item was the freshly made churros. Obviously made by hand, they were the lightest, airiest churros we have found in Columbus and, still hot from the oven, they were absolutely delicious.

We’ve seen La Bendicion products on sale at Mi Bandera on 161, and you may see their wares popping up in other Latino markets around town. It sounds like they also make cakes although none were available to try during our visit.

Early in 2013 we read that Luce had a new Japanese owner and was being rebranded as Luce Nuovo. More recently, they’ve cordoned off a section of their restaurant (including a separate entrance) to open Menya Noodle House, a weekend-only ramen shop that debuted this weekend.

Menya offers three ramen broths – shoyu, miso and tonkotsu. The miso had already sold out, so shoyu and tonkotsu it was for our group of 3. We unanimously prefered the tonkotsu (pork bone broth, pictured below). Nice and rich and meaty, we thought it to likely be the best tonkotsu broth in the city. The shoyu, by contrast, struck us as fairly average.

The pork belly topping was sliced into long bacon-like strips. It was tender but otherwise indistinct, and a more traditional chashu would have been preferable. You can order extra seaweed, egg or pork belly toppings, though they were out of eggs on this visit. Both the ramens that we sampled were served with thin ramen noodles.

There is a small selection of appetizers, including cold tofu with ginger and bonito (best eaten with the provided soy sauce) , edamame, and several rice dishes.

You can also order from Luce’s Italian offerings, printed on the back of the Japanese menu.

For more on ramen in Columbus check out our article for Columbus Crave.

In the former Grandview location of two short lived businesses – Yogi’s pierogis and Yi’s Bento Express – a new Chinese restaurant, Jie’s Good Tasting, has opened. They have 24 seats for dining in, though due to the cramped accommodations and chaotic, disorganized service, they’re probably best suited to take out.

Despite these caveats, there is a good reason to visit Jie’s, namely homemade dumplings that are easily some of the best in town. Ignore the menu and ask which flavors they have, as the menu is not necessarily representative of much of anything if our visits are any indication. On our last trip there were four types available: San Xian (our favorite so far – a mix of pork, shrimp and chive), pork and napa cabbage, pork and pickled cabbage (our number 2 pick) and pork and celery. 16 come to an order, they’re priced in the $7-8 range, and are served with a pleasant soy/vinegar dipping sauce. What makes them good is the thick but tender wrapper and the juicy and flavorful fillings. They go quickly.

Also worth ordering are the dumplings in hot and sour soup and the spicy dumplings (smaller portion of 8 dumplings) pictured behind.

The pan fried pork buns seemed to be popular with the large groups of Chinese students frequenting Jie’s but we found them a little too chewy and thought that the bread to filling ratio erred too far on the bread side.

The menu offers a lot of the standard American Chinese take-out dishes (General Tso is present and accounted for) and a few more interesting choices. We enjoyed both the cumin chicken and the cumin beef. Both dishes are moderately spicy, fragrant with cumin and comprise chunks of meat with fried potatoes. Steamed rice must be requested separately.

The za’ jing noodles, similar to Korean jajagmyun noodles, are boiled noodles served with a black bean sauce and here with your choice of tofu or shrimp.

The tomato and egg soup claims to be made with homemade noodles but on the day we visited we were skeptical of the claim.

If you love dumplings like we do, then a trip to Jie’s is worthwhile… just set your service expectations low. On both visits we found them to be more or less unfamiliar with diners basic expectations (flatware, water, bowls for soup etc).

Simply put, Hass is good, solid, real-deal Mexican in a part of town that is largely lacking. Nestled between Anna’s and Sunflower in a strip center on Sawmill Rd. just north of 270, it operates as a (surprisingly refined) dining room that is semi-attached to a Mexican market (La Favorita). If there’s one thing we’ve learned in researching alt.eats restaurants, the restaurant-market connection gives us reason for heightened expectations.

Expectations met by Hass’s wood fired grill. The flavor of the carne asada (steak) coming off of it is definitely a cut above, especially in the ‘papas calientes’ – a grilled/baked potato that has been sliced open and flattened, and covered with the aforementioned asada, plus bacon, mushrooms, onions, cheese and salsa. It’s like alambres atop a buttery baked potato, and this is a good thing.

The selection of tacos is reasonable, with a fair range of options. Fans of spit-roasted al pastor should find contentment here – it’s a solid and enjoyable rendition that doesn’t (yet?) quite meet the lofty benchmark established by Los Guachos. Fish and shrimp tacos are good, as is the vegetarian taco (taco verde), filled with cactus, potatoes and melted cheese, known as the taco verde.

Burritos and tortas are also available, as are a variety of daily specials. Tostadas are freshly made.

Hass is very new, and in speaking with the owner he admitted that there are some kinks to work out with service and the like. In our experience this was true, though it was nothing major, and we wouldn’t let it deter you from checking it out if your in the area.